Returning to Her Roots
by Bryony Alexis Sprout-Black
Summary: A new girl comes to Hogwarts for sixth year and even though she grew up in America, she has close ties to Hogwarts. Sorry I'm bad at summaries but please read!
1. the hogwarts express

A/N: Oh my god, it would be like so much fun to go to Hogwarts and meet Harry and Draco and like EVERYBODY! Except Snape cuz ew, he's greasy! Anyways, I hope you like this first chappie! R/R PLEASE!!  
  
CHAPPIE ONE  
  
Bryony Alexis Sprout-Black stood on Platform Nine and 3/4s with her trunk and her pet owl, Britney. Britney was a beautiful owl with silver and black feathers. Bryony's mom had given Britney to her as a present when they got to England at the beginning of July. They had gone to Eeylops Owl Emporium in Diagon Alley and Bryony picked her out. Britney was the most beautiful owl in the store and Bryony loved the way her new pet's feathers always shimmered in the sunlight--kind of like Bryony's hair, but a different color.   
  
Bryony grew up in America, and she had been really sad when they came to England at the beginning of the summer because she missed the Fourth of July. It was her favorite holiday and she always loved the fireworks. She always saw them in person, and hated watching them on tv. She thought it just wasn't as good that way, even though she usually loved watching other stuff on tv.  
  
It was almost eleven o' clock. Bryony's mom said, "You should probably get on the train now so you don't miss it." Bryony's mom was born in England so she had an accent, but Bryony didn't. She gave Bryony a hug and a kiss on the cheek.   
  
Bryony groaned, ''Moooom, don't kiss me in public. All these people are watching!'' But really she was upset about leaving her mom to go to a new school. She just didn't want to show it. She didn't want any of the other kids to think she was a baby. She was sixteen, after all!   
  
Bryony walked over to the train with her stuff and looked at the other kids getting on the Hogwarts Express. She had never been around so many people who talked like her mom, and she still thought it was kind of weird. All the other kids looked like they knew each other too, and Bryony was afraid they wouldn't want to get to know someone new. Her mom had told her that there usually weren't very many transfer students at Hogwarts, so Bryony was special.  
  
She got her trunk and Britney up onto the train and then Bryony turned around and waved back to her mom. ''Bye, Mom!'' she called.   
  
Then the train whistled and Bryony turned away and walked down the aisle of the Hogwarts Express. Her stomach was twisting with pain, but she couldn't tell if she was nervous or just hungry or maybe both.   
  
She kept walking down the aisle looking for an empty compartment, but she couldn't find one. Bryony took a deep breath and told herself, _Okay, I'm not going to worry. I was really popular back at home, so of course the kids here will like me too_.  
  
Bryony went to one of the compartments and looked inside, telling herself she'd go in and introduce herself no matter what. There were three boys inside all sitting by themselves.  
  
_Oh my god_, Bryony thought. She looked again. _Wow, that boy sitting by himself is kind of hot! The other two are really ugly, but. . . Whoa, I wonder if he'd like me. . ._   
  
Bryony looked down at her clothes. She was so glad she'd decided to wear her favorite outfit: a lavender tanktop with skinny silver straps and silver trim and her favorite flared jeans and her cute platform flip-flops that she bought at the Woonsocket Magical Mall before she came to England. (Bryony actually lived in Massachusetts but she loved shopping in Rhode Island because they didn't have sales tax on clothing.) Her clothes weren't too tight or revealing. They showed off all her new curves without making her look cheap. She had even painted her fingernails and toenails to match her shirt. She ran her fingers through her long, wavy, elbow-length hair. She never knew if her hair was blonde or brown--it was sort of an in-between color, like shimmering honey, that seemed to shift in the light, and had beautiful silver-blonde highlights that got brighter in the summer when she spent a lot of time outdoors.   
  
She took another deep breath and opened the door. ''Hi,'' she said to the hot boy, ignoring the other two. ''Is it okay if I sit with you guys?''  
  
The hot blond boy looked her over and raised his eyebrows. ''Are you new or something?''  
  
''Oh, yeah,'' Bryony said. ''My name's Bryony, but you can call me 'Bree' if you want. I'm transferring to Hogwarts from America. Who are you?'' she asked, putting down Britney's cage and sitting next to the boy.  
  
''Malfoy. Draco Malfoy,'' he said.  
  
''Oh my god, you sound _just_ like James Bond!'' Bryony couldn't help exclaiming.  
  
''Who's that?'' Draco Malfoy asked.  
  
''Oh, he's in these Muggle movies,'' Bryony said. ''He's like a secret agent or something like that.''  
  
''Muggle--You're not a Mudblood, are you?'' Draco looked kind of queasy and shifted away from Bryony.  
  
Bryony's mouth fell open in surprise. _Wow_, she thought. _I can't believe he actually said the M word! . . . Maybe it was just a slip._ She managed to stop gaping at Draco and said, ''No, I'm a pureblood. But in America even purebloods know all about Muggle stuff. I never even wore wizarding robes there.''  
  
Draco looked a little better. ''Oh, well, alright then. So what year are you?''  
  
''Um, I'm not sure,'' Bryony said. ''My mom told me all about the years here but it's really confusing. I was in tenth grade last year at the Salem Institute. It was really cool there. It's a boarding school, but I lived really close so I stayed at home and took the Floo everyday.''   
  
''Well, how old are you?'' Draco asked.  
  
''Sixteen,'' Bryony replied. ''Almost sixteen and a half. My birthday was on April first, so today I'm exactly sixteen and five months.''  
  
Draco smiled. ''You must be a sixth year then. I'm a sixth year too. So are Crabbe and Goyle.'' He nodded at the two big boys sitting across the compartment.  
  
''Oh, hey,'' Bryony said to Crabbe and Goyle, flashing them a smile. Then she turned back to Draco.  
  
''So what are you doing at Hogwarts?'' asked Draco.  
  
''Oh, well, it's kind of a long story,'' Bryony said. ''Basically, like, my dad died and Mom decided she wanted to live closer to my grandma. My grandma is Professor Sprout.''   
  
''A Hufflepuff?''   
  
''Um, yeah, is there something wrong with Hufflepuffs?''  
  
''The whole lot of them are duffers,'' Draco explained. ''Slytherin is the only decent house.''  
  
''Oh, okay,'' Bryony said. Her mom had never said anything nice about Slytherin. She knew her dad's family was from Slytherin mostly, and her mom said they were all really mean. But could Draco be right? He was a Slytherin himself, after all, so he'd know best what they were like.  
  
Draco stood up. ''I've got to go do some prefect stuff now.''  
  
''What's a prefect? Is that like class president or something?''  
  
Draco looked confused. ''No, it's like a prefect. It means I'm one of the best students in my year.''  
  
''Oh, that sounds cool,'' Bryony said.  
  
Just then a really ugly blonde girl opened the compartment door. ''Draco,'' she said. ''It's time for our prefect stuff.'' Then she looked at Bryony. ''Who are _you_?''  
  
''Hi, I'm Bryony,'' said Bryony. ''I'm from America.''  
  
''Oh, cool accent! I'm Pansy Parkinson,'' the girl said. ''Come on, Draco!'' She grabbed Draco's hand and pulled him out to the corridor.   
  
Bryony felt really sorry for Pansy. She really wasn't very pretty, and Bryony had a feeling that Draco probably didn't like Pansy that much, even though she obviously had a crush on him. Then Bryony looked up and realized she was all by herself with Crabbe and Goyle.  
  
''Um,'' she told them. ''I'm like gonna go now! Bye!''  
  
Bryony went out into the hallway with Britney and her stuff and found another compartment to sit in. Inside the new compartment, she met a bunch of Ravenclaws. Bryony introduced herself and sat down.  
  
''Hi, my name's Cho,'' said one of the girls. She was kind of pretty, but Bryony thought she looked sort of depressed.  
  
''You know,'' Bryony said. ''You'd look a lot better if you smiled more.'' Cho sort of looked like she was going to cry, so Bryony turned to another girl. ''Hey, what's your name?''  
  
''Marietta,'' the girl said. She looked like she had really bad acne scars all across her face. Bryony thought they were sort of in a pattern, like a word, but she couldn't make it out. Bryony had flawless skin, and she felt really bad for Marietta.  
  
''Hey, I could probably fix your, um, like, you know,'' Bryony said helpfully, pointing at her own face to show what she was talking about.  
  
Marietta didn't say anything. She turned to Cho to try to make her feel better.  
  
Bryony shrugged and pulled out her CD player. _Fine_, she thought. _I was only trying to help. If I had skin like that, I'd probably kill myself._ She slipped on her headphones and flipped open the latest issue of _Teen Witch_ and started taking a quiz called, "Is Harry Potter the Wizard for You?" Bryony worked on the quiz, remembering that her mom had said Harry Potter went to Hogwarts. She wondered if she'd meet him soon, and what he'd be like. . .  
  
~*~*~*~   
  
A/N: Okay that's it for the first chappie! Don't forget to REVIEW!! 


	2. the sorting hat

A/N: OMG I totally forgot to thank my betta in the first chappie! shes really smart..... I mean she's even in honors english! Thank you Chanda!! Your the best lol!! ^_^  
  
thnx to all my reviewers!!! you guy sare the best!!!!!  
  
Okay everybody this is the chapter where Bree gets sorted!!! omg i wonder which house she'll be in lol! I HOPE whoops caps lock got turned on i hope you like it and don't forget to R/R!!!!!!!   
  
~*~*~*~   
  
CHAPPIE 2  
  
When the Hogwarts Express finally pulled into the station at Hogsmeade, Bryony Alexis Sprout-Black was really relieved. _That was the longest trip ever_, she thought. She'd listened to her No Doubt and Alanis Morissette CDs over and over. She was also really glad that the train had a bathroom, because she had way too much pumpkin juice when the witch came by with the snack trolley.  
  
When she got off the train, she felt really weird about leaving Britney and her stuff, but all that was going to be taken up to the castle by magic. Bryony followed a bunch of other students to some carriages that were being pulled by invisible animals (A/N: Bryony can't see the thestrals so she doesn't know they're there lol! ;)   
  
Bryony got in a carriage with some Ravenclaws and they went up to Hogwarts. She was starting to get really excited. The castle was really big and ancient and Bryony thought it looked like something out of the movies. That reminded her of when her mom said that they didn't have tv at Hogwarts, so she wouldn't be able to watch her favorite movies like Romeo + Juliet. Bryony sighed to herself. _Oh well, at least I can still hang up my Leonardo DiCaprio poster in my dorm_, she thought. Then she remembered that she was going to see her grandma, Professor Sprout, in just a few minutes. She smiled to herself. Her grandma was always really nice to her, but she never got to see her very often because they had always lived in different countries before.  
  
The carriages took everyone right up to the front doors of the castle. Bryony got out and went inside with everyone else. She was totally amazed. The castle doors were huge and the entry hall was really old and cool looking. Everyone except the first years (because they weren't there yet) went into the Great Hall and sat down at their house tables.  
  
Bryony stood in the Great Hall by herself. She didn't even notice how awesome the Great Hall was, especially the ceiling. _Oh no!_ she thought. _What am I going to do? Everyone else is sitting down but I don't know where to go! This is sooo embarrassing!_  
  
Bryony was saved when her grandma walked up to her. ''Bryony!'' said Professor Sprout. ''I'm so glad to see you!''  
  
Bryony sighed with relief. ''Grandma!'' she said. She had never been happier to see her Grandma Sprout. Some of the kids nearby were staring at her, but Bryony didn't notice as her grandma gave her a big hug. Bryony just wished her grandma didn't smell like dirt. That was kind of gross.  
  
''You can come sit at the High Table with me,'' Grandma Sprout said to Bryony. They walked up to the table where all the teachers were sitting and Bryony took a seat between her Grandma Sprout and a really, really little funny-looking man.  
  
Bryony looked around the Great Hall now and thought about getting sorted. She was so nervous! She wondered if she was going to be in Hufflepuff like her grandma and her mom, or if she was going to be in Gryffindor like her mom said her dad was.  
  
After a while, a bunch of first years came into the Great Hall and stood there. A very old man with a long beard got up at the High Table. Bryony knew this was Headmaster Dumbledore because her mom had told her all about how cool he was.  
  
''Welcome to another year at Hogwarts!'' Dumbledore said. He started talking a lot about how really dark things were happening. Bryony was a little scared by all that stuff, but she knew about most of it and besides she was just so nervous about being sorted that she couldn't really think about anything else!  
  
Then Dumbledore said, ''Before the new first years are sorted, we have a new student. Her name is Bryony Alexis Sprout-Blac. She is very special because she is a transfer student from America. She is also Professor Sprout's grand daughter. I hope everyone welcomes her and makes her feel at home. Because she's special, she's going to be sorted now before all the first years.''  
  
Then the teacher that came in with all the first years, Professor McGonigal, put a stool and a really old hat down in front of the High Table. Bryony took a deep breath and got up and sat down on the stool. Professor McGonngal put the hat on her head. The hat was really big, so Bryony couldn't see anything.  
  
_Ewww_, Bryony thought. _How old is this hat? It smells kind of gross. I hope it doesn't have lice or something!_ ''I don't have lice!'' said the hat.  
  
_Ohmigod you can talk!_ Bryony thought to the hat. _You might want to get dry-cleaned or something._  
  
''What's dry cleaning?'' said the hat. Bryony could tell it was only talking to her, like some sort of cool telepathy thing almost. ''Now let me look in your head,'' the hat said. ''Wellll, hmm... You're not a Ravenclaw because even though you like school, you have so much natural talent so you don't really need to study a lot. Ravenclaw would be too boring for you, Bryony. You are loyal and work hard like Hufflepuff, so maybe that house. You have ambition, like Slytherin, but that house doesn't really work for you. You are definitely brave and stuff like that. So do you want to be in Gryffindor or Hufflepuff?''  
  
Bryony thought about this. She remembered what Draco said about Hufflepuff, and that her mom said that Harry Potter was in Gryffindor, like her dad. Also, she thought red and gold was a way better color combination than yellow and black. Yellow and black made her think of bees or something!  
  
''I think I'll be in Gryffindor,'' Bryony thought to the hat.  
  
''Okay,'' said the sorting hat. Then it shouted, ''GRYFFINDOR!!!'' and Bryony knew it said it really loud so the whole Great Hall could hear.  
  
Bryony took off the hat and sighed with relief. She was so glad that was over! McGonagal looked really happy and took the hat from Bryony. Then she said, ''You can go sit at the Gryffindor table now,'' and she pointed to it so Bryony would know which one it was.  
  
Everyone was clapping, especially the Gryffindors. She went and sat with them, and they all said hello.  
  
''Hi!'' she said. ''Even though my name's Bryony, you guys can call me Bree.''  
  
''Bryony?'' said a girl with really bushy hair. _Wow_, Bryony thought. _She really needs a defrizzing potion!_ ''Isn't bryony an ingredient in most love potions?''  
  
''Um, so?'' Bryony said.  
  
''Well, it's an important ingredient to make the potion trick people,'' the girl said.  
  
''Uh, yeah, okay,'' Bryony said. ''My name's like really unique and special just because my grandma is such a good herbologist. Um, duh.''  
  
There was a boy with black hair sitting next to her. He was wearing glasses, too. He said, ''Bree, did Dumbledore say your last name is Sprout-Black?''  
  
''Yeah,'' Bryony said. She shrugged. ''My mom hyphenated her name cuz it's like more feminist or whatever.''  
  
''Okay,'' said the boy. He looked really thoughtful and sad, and like maybe he wanted to say something else, but he didn't.  
  
Bryony felt really bad for him. Then an idea hit her. _Omigod! Duh! Of course!_ she thought. ''Omigod, are you Harry Potter?'' she asked the boy. She tried to see if she could see his famous lightning bolt scar but his bangs were really long.  
  
''Uh, yeah,'' he said.  
  
''Oh, wow! That's so cool!'' Bryony said. She was going to add that the quiz she took said that they were MFEO (Made For Each Other), but she didn't want to embarrass him or anything.  
  
There was a red-haired boy there too. He said, ''Hi Bree, I'm Ron Weasley.''  
  
''Hi,'' Bree said.  
  
Then the bushy haired girl introduced herself. She said she was Hermione Granger. Bryony thought that she was probably okay, but she kind of had an attitude. And she had the hair problem.  
  
Then the first years got sorted and everyone ate dinner. Bryony had a lot of fun talking to the kids at the Gryffindor table, and the food was really, really good even though she wished they had hamburgers and pizza and regular American food like that. She thought about how her dad was in Gryffindor and she wondered if anybody knew about him. She knew that the newspapers said he died, but she wondered if some people still believed he was a bad guy. Bryony and her mom always knew he wasn't, but she wasn't ready yet to talk about her dad who she'd never even got the chance to meet.  
  
~*~*~*~   
  
A/N: Whoo Gryffindor!!! ok that's it for chappie 2. In the next one she's gonna go to her classes and meet like the other girls in her dorm (that means Lavendar and Parvati) and stuff!! PLZ REVIEW!!!! 


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